A free clipboard manager for Windows

For a free clipboard manager on Windows, try Clip by Zaweba. It's free software that runs offline with no account, sits in the tray and remembers what you copy, from text and formatted text to web content, pictures and file lists. Press Ctrl+Shift+V, type a few letters and press Enter to paste any of it again.

It suits anyone who copies and pastes all day and would rather their clipboard history stayed on their own PC.

What you get

The heart of Clip is the popup. Press Ctrl+Shift+V and a numbered list opens at the mouse pointer, pins first, then newest first. Type to filter it, where every word you type must match the text or the name of the program it came from. Type #37 to jump to item 37, or press Ctrl+1 to Ctrl+9 to paste one of the first nine rows directly. Enter pastes into the window you were using; Shift+Enter pastes plain text only.

Around that sit a few features you'll come to lean on. Pins keep an address, a phone number or a signature at the top, and no limit ever removes them. Snippets are named blocks of text with a trigger, such as ;addr, or a global hotkey of their own. The main window has a full History page with search and preview, plus Snippets, Privacy and Settings pages.

Private by default

Free tools sometimes come at the cost of your data. Clip keeps everything in a local database on your PC, with no account and no cloud. It skips content that password managers flag as private before reading it, and it keeps an excluded programs list that comes pre-filled with common desktop password managers. In Settings you can encrypt the stored history with Windows' own protection for your user account.

Pause recording from the tray whenever you like; it's remembered across restarts. Clear history keeps your pins, and Clear everything removes the lot after a confirmation.

Setting it up well

Install it and look at Settings first. If you use Office, Chrome or VS Code, note that they use Ctrl+Shift+V for their own paste as plain text, and Clip will take that shortcut while it runs. Keep it, since Clip's Shift+Enter does a plain-text paste too, or click the hotkey box and press a different combination.

Next, decide how much to keep. The default is 500 unpinned items, adjustable from 10 to 100,000. Pictures are capped at 100 MB in total by default. Choose whether to record pictures, file lists and formatting. Turn on Start Clip when I sign in if you want the history running all day without thinking about it.

Then pin the three or four things you paste most, and write snippets for your stock replies.

Extras worth knowing

Clip includes Quick clip. Press Ctrl+Alt+C, snip part of the screen, say or type a name, and it's saved as a named JPG in Pictures\Clips. Any picture already in your history can be saved the same way.

Versions for macOS and Linux exist too, sharing the same history file and settings.

What it won't do

Clip can't paste into programs running as administrator, though the item is left on the clipboard for you to paste with Ctrl+V. Snippets are plain text without date or name placeholders, and their triggers work in the popup rather than anywhere you type. Passwords copied by browser-extension password managers can't be detected, so pause recording while you use one.

For everyday copying and pasting, it's a full clipboard history that costs nothing and keeps your data where it belongs.